Getting at Financial Status. How to Ascertain the Monetary Resources of Callers Who Appear Unannounced—Line of Conversation That Will Lead Any Man to Unwittingly Reveal His Financial Standing—Free Examinations and How Smart Specialists Make of Them a Big Drawing Card—Bringing a Caller to the Point of Submitting to an Examination—Means by Which an Impression is Made—Benefit in Keeping an “Assistant” Within Handy Reach—Clinching the Caller as a Patient—Avoiding the Naming of a Definite Time for Treatment—Reasons Why Some Specialists Fail to Obtain Good Fees—Lack of Tact in Getting at a Caller’s Ability to Pay a Reasonable Fee—Crude Tactics that Defeat the Purpose of the Physician—Danger in Too Much Haste and Rash Promises—Modesty Properly Applied the Great Winner 119 CHAPTER IX. 6Deciding Upon the Fee. Value of Psychological Influence in Acting at the Right Moment—Just as Easy to Get Big Fees as Small Ones—Experience of a Young Physician—Great Difference in Patients—An Exhibition of “Gall”—Incubus of the Old Dollar-Fee System—When to Name the Fee and How to Fix Upon the Amount—What the Practitioner Should Say and Do in Order to Secure Large Payments—How Reduction May Be Gracefully Made When a Patient Protests Against the Amount—Dealing With “Tight Wads”—How to Skilfully Dangle the Bait of Health Without Actually Promising Results—Taboo on the Word “Cure”—Bringing the Caller Who Hesitates Down to the Point of Positive Action—System to Be Followed in Deciding Upon Amount of Fee a Patient Will Pay 131 CHAPTER X. Getting Fees in Advance. How the Money May Be Secured Before Treatment Is Started—Undue Haste, or Evident Desire to Get the Cash, Bad Policy—Putting the Patient’s Mind in Condition to Make Advance Payment—A Successful Fee Getter’s Line of Talk—Creation of Confidence in the Physician’s Ability and Honesty the Main Factor—Making Sure of Payment When Partial Credit Is Extended—Method of Drawing Notes That Are Readily Negotiable and Non-Contestable—Inducing Patients to Sign Iron-Clad Notes—When and How to Act—Turning Checks and Notes Into Cash—Weeding Out the Payers and Non-Payers—What to Say When a Patient Objects to Signing a Note—Smart Man Easiest to Deal With—Instance in Which a Banker Paid a $2,500 Fee Twice—How a $10,000 Fee, Definitely Settled Upon, Was Lost 141 CHAPTER XI.